


Remembrance

by kyanos



Series: Serenades [3]
Category: Finder no Hyouteki | Finder Series
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2015-10-02
Packaged: 2018-04-24 12:06:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4918945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyanos/pseuds/kyanos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An accidental scarf switch and what ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remembrance

This is one of the rare mornings on which Akihito leaves before he does. His arms are empty and the thick quilt does little to chase away the absence of the true source of warmth in his life. He doesn’t tarry in uneasy drowsiness however. The quilt clumsily tucked into his left side and the hasty, furtive press of warm lips to his a few minutes ago is enough to tide him into a relatively calm sleep.

A few hours later he blinks into wakefulness and rises straight away. He lingers a little longer than usual when he doesn’t have to slide out of bed carefully, doesn’t have to worry about the open door of the bathroom when hot water blasts him for his morning shower, doesn’t have to gently close that of the bedroom either when leaving it, against the well lit penthouse in the morning and the whirl of the coffee maker in the kitchen.

He is almost fully dressed, the cooling breakfast and the scolding note in neon green about it affixed to the fridge having melted the mantle of iciness from his mood this morning. The vest and the jacket draped over the back of the boy’s chair at the table, no longer a needed defense against the elements but just untouched parts of his attire.    

He does up his cufflinks, pulls on his gloves, puts on his thick outer coat over the jacket and the waistcoat. The weather forecast in the morning paper and the impotent sunlight, though bright, has him reaching for a scarf.

The selection available makes him pause a moment.

Next to where his own cream cashmere scarf should be, a rich midnight blue one hangs instead. On a whim he reaches for it. It’s the boys. An expensive present from his grandmother for his recent exploits.

He is about to put it away, to look in one of his dresser drawers for one of his own that it passes close to his face and he catches a distinct scent. A mellow note of mild honey from the shampoo the boy so favours, dry notes of fixer, and the boys own faint musk still clinging to it.

When he leaves the house and it is wound around his neck he justifies it as revenge.

 

*

 

Kirishima blinks at the softer than expected line of the boss’s mouth and the less tense than usual set of his shoulders. The boy had left for two and a half weeks after all, unexpectedly too and on a mere half a dozen hour’s notice. His wary vigilance of the boss’s body language isn’t exactly uncalled for. He was expecting… well, he was expecting much worse.

He lets himself relax just a fraction and tries to make the transition of focus from his boss on the other side of the limousine to the iPad in his hands as natural as possible. However it is the small fluctuations on the quarterly reports Asami is leafing through that become his saving grace from a cutting raise of a sharp eyebrow rather than his own carefulness. After all there is no hiding from Asami. Not after all these years.

Heavily filtered noon sunlight flickers in and out of the car for a while before he can truly relax since Asami hasn’t chosen to say anything about him stealing anxious looks at his boss and they’re almost at the office.

Takaba-kun must be getting better at dealing with the boss’s possessiveness, at soothing it before it turned it into burning shackles that kept the young man tied down.

His walks easier into the office after Asami than he did before in the morning, leaving to pick him up.

 

*

 

On the other hand a few hours ahead of Japan, the overestimated young man in question hastily stuffs the eye catching scarf underneath his jacket’s collar, right up against his neck as he zips up the high collar. He had accidently picked the wrong one in his hurry to leave, the dull darkness of the room making it hard to distinguish between colours. Still, he is thankful for the memories it conjures up that keep him warm on a snow encrusted day, even though it almost gave his position away.  

It’s the first day of the second week that the scarf he’s taken to tucking half his face in, begins to take on his own odour (of unwashed photojournalist crouching in back alleys of chemical factories) in addition to that of one too many dunhills still belligerently clinging to it, the oaky whiskey and warm cologne lost on the the third and fifth day respectively, that his patience begins to crack. The intermingled scent is quite an in-the-face reminder of the unsortable snarl the two of them are, one that he doesn’t need at the moment stuck as he is in the back end of Eastern Europe with one of the most cryptic assignments of his career.

By the end of the fortnight he wants to, either:

  1. wind it around his neck so tightly that he chokes, dies, and as a result doesn’t have to face his mortifying feelings of… of… attachment to whom the wretched thing belongs.

  2. throw it into the streetside fires lit by the homeless on the snow piled roads. He’ll be doing the older man a favour. An indirect act of kindness to add to the man’s pitiably small (according to his own imagination) pile of good deeds.




However at the end it is with the poor thing wound around his fist like a coiled, cream coloured snake that he sends a few flustered texts home bundled up in the back of a truck in the bitter cold:

 

 

By the time he realises he's hit send it's too late to do anything but to hiss into the night.

 

*

Takes Asami a while to send it because he has to get it dry cleaned. It practically smells like him and well, Akihito can’t know. If there are still any lingering traces left behind they can be, quite easily, linked to the aftereffects of the article of clothing being in the same premises as a heavy smoker such as himself.

His overwrought justifications to himself over so small a thing had him almost raising his palm to his face.

He hadn’t reason to do that in a while.

The thought smooths the tension from his frame and he decides to not dwell on it anymore. He has not been shy (the very thought of it calls forth a derisive snort) when it comes to his relationship with the other man.

So he gets it cleaned not to clear away any of his own traces on it but just simply for providing Akihito with a freshly laundered scarf. Intentions are important even though the act is the same.

He also calls up his tailor and gets a fitted, thigh high, cashmere coat for the boy.

 

*

 

Akihito is almost driven spare by the time it arrives.

His sparse environment has an unsettling effect on the way he thinks. There is nothing marking the land, neither man nor nature. There are sharp edged, non descript, blocky buildings coming up as slight blips on the white reel of the snowed over country.

There is no telling where the edge of the land ends and the horizon begins on empty days. The white of it is so pure that when the sun rises it seems as though he is stuck under a vast, high ceiling which is on fire, when the sun sinks there are oceans of colours spilled onto it. Cold golden washes receding to waves of blushing pink and settling into a vivacious aquamarine, until even that fades to unpolished black.

The sweeping clean of the landscape day and night triggers something similar inside of him. When he goes out for his assignment there is nothing in his environment to blot out. He reaches for focus and it is there. So when he comes back to the lodge where he is staying during the starry hours of late, late night or the periwinkle blue of very early morning the usual noise of his life off his mind and work done for the day he has no choice but to face what remains behind at the core of him. 

Still he manages to run. Focuses on the assignment, but unluckily such dedication bears results and he gets the desired photographs three days before his deadline.

He can’t ring up his friends as the time is ungodly and he’ll probably get told off. He’s played through all the games on his phone and even the internet has nothing to offer after an hour and thirty six minutes desperately bored searching. It’s like being cornered in a fight in vast boxing ring, his enemy looming up and sticking their mug right into his face until he has no choice but to face it.

He comes down to the modest sized dining room and dinner is a clean tasting stew with warmed up thick bread. Food is always a welcome distraction. When he arrived it was hard to stomach but now it is comforting, filling. The server has given up on trying to serve him alcohol and sets down a steaming cup of black tea instead. It wouldn’t do to get drunk on the job. He gets teased about it enough by the stupid jerk-

He hastily swallows down the sip he almost choked on.

He plays the blame game with his subconscious while eating the well cooked deer and potatoes. By the time he is finished with his dinner and decides to be a man and just let the damn thing out. It’s just a thought after all, and it is his own, he can take it, he reasons.

Dessert arrives (rich, eggy pastries and a small cup of soothing, milky, coffee) and the server asks him warily if he’s alright. He manages a tight nod somehow which appeases him enough to leave Akihito to his devices.

As soon as the waiter turns around, he stops holding himself back.

The first thing he feels is sheer relief out of letting go and he lays his head down on the smooth, wooden table top.

After that, the realisation that comes is just as sedate and arrogant as the man it is about. It sits so comfortably in the innermost reaches of his heart as though it’s been there forever.

He groans.

There is no reaction from the surrounding tables anymore. He’s been given up on as an eccentric oddity. He wants to strangle Asami for doing that to him. Just a little bit.

Really, he should’ve known. He raises his head and scrubs his face. The bracing scent of hot, freshly brewed, thick coffee finds wakes him up a little. This too, has taken some getting used to. The bitterness of the first sip reminds him of another sort of bitter flavour which often found its way into his mouth with the older man around.

He finds what he shares with the other man in the very fabric of his being, right up there with others he holds dear, things, and feeling, and people. The web of which holds him up, allows him to spring back in the face of adversity. While he was busy looking away Asami had made his way into the very heart of him and he wasn’t even aware.

There aren’t that many guests left when his thoughts allow him leave. The earthy brown tones of the room and the turned down lights have him yawning soon enough and he heads for his room.

He sleeps well. It’s as though Asami is there with him now that he has accepted him in his heart.

When the next sunrise arrives, a bright ceramic plate taken out of murky dishwater, there is silence and stillness in his heart instead of the usual restlessness that comes with the desire to run away from oneself.

He lies in bed for a bit longer and tries to savour the peace and as he becomes familiar with the taste lying on the smooth sheets under a downy comforter. It’s... a determined poise. A runner standing comfortably before the starting line having shaken off the jitters.

He eyes Asami’s package lying on the sofa thoughtfully.

 

*

 

He leaves a day early for Tokyo, the other man’s scarf wound around his neck. His own stuffed into his backpack still in it’s wrapping from the dry cleaners. 

He still refuses to wear the coat though.

 

*

 

Epilogue:

 

_Here it snowed as well. It was a slow flood of stars from the sky forming feathery piles on the marble floor of the balcony. Here stood two people, unheeding of the cold, the falling snowflakes, the twinkling city beneath them._

_Slowly the slighter of the two turned into the arms of the other and from a distance they didn’t seem like two embracing but a single being, finally completed, filigreed a softly glowing golden from the streetlights._

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry you guys have to put up with this. It's unbeta'ed so feel free to point out any mistakes (of which I'm sure there are many.)


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